Jungle Jim and the Birthday Dinner

I went down to my parent's house last weekend for the annual January birthday dinner.  Quent wasn't able to go as he was on call.  It was fun to hang out with everyone for about four hours.  I made Alyssa and Morgan tutus and they had a fun time modeling them for everyone.  They'll be in my Etsy shop soon as will a few other arts and crafts.  As usual the kids had fun playing on jungle Jim, and believe it or not, no one got hurt.

Here are a few pictures from the dinner.

Moose, Moose and more Moose

Quent and I took our annual trip to Jackson Hole this past weekend.  After traveling through Yellowstone and Jackson four different times last year we did not spot one moose.  This year, we saw over 25 moose at different times throughout the trip, we saw a few bull moose and a few cow moose, unfortunately for us the moose had already dropped their antlers for the season so they all looked the same! We took Quent's mom with us as part of our Christmas present to her.

We left on Saturday morning and were to Jackson by mid afternoon.  Saturday was the best day for pictures as the weather was perfect. We found an elk refuge in Alpine, Wyoming, the elk there were AMAZING. I had never in my life been so close to elk with antlers so large. The sun did not shine but for a few minutes on Monday so we were unable to see the Tetons the entire time we were there but what missed shooting was made up for with all the fun things we did.


We ventured out on all of our old routes and actually found a few more roads to explore.  We learned that when you see moose in the wild all the other animals have pushed down hence we did not see one buffalo on the entire trip, a rarity for us.

Sunday we drove over towards Dubois, Wyoming to see what we could find.  Unfortunately the weather turned and we weren't able to find much except for a ton of snow covered pine trees.  We didn't travel much further than Togwotee Mountain Lodge which is located at an elevation of 9658 feet. We then drove up to Yellowstone through Teton National Park, we made it all the way to the snowmobile lot at the Flagg Ranch, two miles away from the entrance of Yellowstone.  We were able to see an eagle on Sunday.  The weather wasn't great the rest of the day, we took more pictures of elk just west of the refuge but that was about it.


Monday we headed back to the refuge where we were able to see an up close view of elk being fed.  We got some video of the elk stampede and watched them as they were fed.  What an amazing site.  We then headed back up to Jenny Lake and saw more moose and swans.  Monday afternoon we headed out to Wilson, just west of Jackson and found some new roads to explore.  


In the four days we were gone we drove 822 miles in 24 hours and 47 minutes.  Quent and I took close to a thousand pictures, I'm not sure how many Joyce took.  It was a great trip and we're already talking about next year's adventures.  

I have included just a few of the pictures here, for a slideshow of about 50 pictures click here.

Happy Birthday Patrick!

My nephew Patrick turned two on Saturday and in true fashion my sister threw a birthday party for him Sunday night.  Quent was working so he was unable to go so I went solo.  Here are a few pictures of the Thomas the Train Birthday bash!

More Wildlife

Yesterday when Quent and I were driving down to Brigham City to get my tire fixed we noticed the Turkey's roosting in the trees. Of course we didn't have the camera and it was too dark when we got back to take pictures so we headed out just before dark tonight to see what we could find.  We got over to the campground just in time to see the turkeys fly up.  It was pretty cool.  Here are some pictures I took of the turkeys and some of the deer that were in the yard when we got back.

 10 Turkeys

 Turkeys landing in the trees

 Lots of turkeys

 Deer posing for the picture

 A cute deer family

 Posing once again

 Quent spooked the fawns

Standing in the stream

Deer in the backyard

It's been really cold up here this week and the deer have been moving down earlier and earlier.  Today we had about 30 deer right behind our back fence.  Here are a few pictures of our dear friends. (pun intended)

The Challenge

I have decided to take on a photo challenge for 2011. The challenge consists of 365 different themes in which to take pictures from -- yes that means a picture a day. I've started out strong, it's the second day of 2011 and I've only posted on picture. In my defense I only found the photo challenge late last night. I will catch up this week and will hopefully post a photo a day.  However in an effort not to put too much pressure on myself to post a photo a day, I hope to catch up once a week so there are seven posts a week. 

I set up a different blog for the photography challenge as it is a worldwide challenge, I wanted to be able to post anonymously. Here is a link to the photo blog. I’ve also added a link to our favorite websites section.

Happy New Year!!!

Quent and I had a pretty quiet New Years Eve/New Years.  Friday night we went to dinner in Logan and hit both Walmarts in Cache Valley looking for Christmas clearance stuff. We ran into an old friend of Quent's and I expect him to be visiting us at the hatchery real soon.

We watched the ball drop, or was it Snookie?, on MTV at 9:59 our time, that was good enough for Quent as he was off to bed not long after.  I stayed up a bit longer watched the local and national (prerecorded) NYE festivities while dozing in the Lazy Boy.  I woke up at 11:59 just in time to see the fireworks display in Salt Lake on TV and then it was back to sleep!

Today we hit the Brigham City Walmart and scoured the clearance toy section for birthday gifts later in the year and managed to find a BBQ on sale for a great price.  Our grill died a few months ago and it's been all indoor cooking ever since.  We're going to try out the new grill tomorrow afternoon in what we hope will be double-digit temperatures (our high today was about 10). We did go to a movie (Little Fockers), it was funny and  it was good day out.

We hope everyone has a great 2011.  We had a great time in 2010, a few laughs, a few tears, a loss or two and a lot of gains.  We hope everyone is looking forward to a happy and healthy 2011.

Christmas Day

The day didn't start out as early as I had thought it would. We were at Joe's house and the kids didn't get up until well after 7 a.m. It was fun to see the kids open their presents and see how excited they were for each and every gift. The best part of the morning came when Joe and Joy both gave each other a popcorn maker.

We went to my mom and dad's for brunch later that morning and spent time with the entire family (Dale's family excluded) eating, eating and eating and opening more presents.

After we let my mom's house we stopped by and visited Joyce and Kerry on the way home and made it home by 5 p.m. It was a busy weekend but we wouldn't have it any other way. The holidays are meant to be spent with family and that's exactly what we did.

As for Quent and I we bought a new camera as our present to ourselves.  We "unwrapped" it before all the festivities began! 

 Stop taking pictures Aunt Cindy, I've got presents to open

 Morgan's "iPod" and TJ's Leapster

 Morgan was excited to see her dad open a present

 Popcorn anyone?

 The aftermath at Joe and Joy's house -- and Yes that is TJ's Cow Pillow Pet

 Morgan and Alyssa got a stencil set from Grandma and Grandpa

 TJ & Patrick got really cool trucks from Grandma and Grandpa

 Alyssa opening presents

Morgan and Alyssa got digital camera's from Aunt Cindy & Uncle Quent. (They were the hit of the day)

Video of Morgan and TJ opening their Santa presents

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with Quent's family -- just as we have done since 2006.  We went to Christmas Eve Mass in Layton and then out to eat.  We went to Red Robin this year which was a change from past years but I love Red Robin so it was a welcome change.  We went from dinner back to Joyce's house to open presents and to talk to Nancy and her family via Skype.  After we opened presents we went to my brother Joe's house so we would be there to watch the kids open their presents Christmas morning.

Busy Weekend Ahead

Christmas will be away from home this year as Quent is not tied to the hatchery this year.  We will head south to Quent's mom's house for Christmas Eve and will spend Christmas morning with my family.  We'll be back home Christmas night.  We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and that you may remember the reason for the season!